Hampden County's pragmatic prosecutor takes helm at MDAA.

Byline: Pat Murphy

The new head of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association wasted little time in showing he's not afraid to rock the boat.

Last month, the state's 11 district attorneys elected Hampden County DA Anthony D. Gulluni as president of the MDAA. One of Gulluni's first acts in the role was to inform the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission that members of the MDAA had voted to end the organization's participation in the commission. According to the MDAA, the commission is failing to abide by a statutory mandate to submit its proposed sentencing guidelines to the Legislature.

"The commission has ignored repeated requests to abide by this governing law, which is rooted in basic constitutional principles regarding the separation of powers," Gulluni said in a statement announcing the MDAA's action.

Gulluni, 39, was elected Hampden County district attorney in 2014. Before that, he was an assistant DA and an attorney in the city of Springfield's law department.

His openness to listening to all voices would seem to serve him well in leading an organization that includes, among others, Suffolk County DA Rachael Rollins, one of the new breed of progressive prosecutors making their mark across the country.

In that regard, Gulluni says he has seen the role of prosecutors evolve during his career.

"So many more issues are thrust upon us to deal with, issues that are really social in nature," Gulluni says.

For example, Gulluni says that his office is more and more approaching drug addiction as a health issue as opposed to a criminal justice problem, pointing to the opening of a Drug Court in Springfield in 2016.

"The 'lock 'em up [and] throw away the key approach' is not effective," Gulluni says. "We're not going arrest ourselves out of these problems."

Gulluni's ability to think outside the box brought him to push for the launching in January of an innovative court in Hampden County aimed at rehabilitating defendants between the ages of 18 and 24, avoiding an adult corrections track that all too often breeds lifelong criminals.

And several years ago, Gulluni created an Addiction Task Force in his office.

"We bring together people from across the spectrum, including people in recovery and addiction services," Gulluni says. "We meet to figure out ways outside of the court system and prosecution to help people who are suffering from addiction."

But how does a DA balance the goal of public safety with public health and social justice...